A customer had an unexpected dinner companion – when an octopus tried to escape from her seafood bucket.

Ms Liu was having dinner at a hot pot restaurant in Beijing, China, when the live mollusk tried to climb out of the bucket.

A video shows the octopus retreating back into the bucket after its tentacle dipped into the boiling broth. 

The octopus was not supposed to be eaten as-is but made a daring escape from a bucket of ingredients waiting to be used. 

Hot pot, a traditional Chinese meal, involves diners cooking a variety of ingredients themselves in a pot of boiling broth. 

The video was filmed on January 21.